To indulge my DD?

DD is 3 & a bit, she's a happy, mischevious little girl with a lovely imagination, she plays lovely games with her stuffed toys etc for hours & chats away giving them names etc.

Anyway - in recent weeks DD has played a harmless game of wanting to be called Mr.Tree, I'll call DD & she'll say 'No I'm not DD I'm Mr.Tree' & so I play along, 'Mr.Tree would you like a drink', 'Mr.Tree would you like some lunch' etc etc, she finds if funny that we're all calling her Mr.Tree & she has great fun. She even went to nursery today as Mr.Tree & the nursery staff are playing along too so she's loving it!

My mother (who I'm slowly learning is a toxic parent) thinks it's awful that I'm playing along, she says I should tell DD to stop being silly & refuse to call her Mr.Tree. Once again I feel like a bad mum & am second guessing myself. It's harmless though right? I mean come on, she's 3, she's playing a game, having fun why wouldn't I play along with that?

nooooo! you are not being unreasonable to play along! My DD2 changed her name to Amethyst, and DD1 had an imaginary big sister called Wilbur. I loved playing along. Take pride in the fact your DD has a fab imagination

My dd chose several new names for herself which I cheerfully used. She also spent a week as a lemur, and a particularly trying time as a flamingo. She also had names her feet, and I had to ask them by name to put their shoes on.

Glad your mother didn't see that!

Carry on, it's fun and sweet and does no harm at all -rather the opposite.

Why knock on the head one of the nicest bits of having (or being) a three year old?My youngest DC is 7 now and I miss all those imaginary games. DD2 was a dog called Smudge for a long while and I loved playing along with it. DD3 was quite often a cat.Your mum is completely wrong, but you already know that. Enjoy it!

Sadly my mother was never one these 'plays with her children' kind of parent. I cannot recall playing any games with my mother, imaginery or otherwise! Our house was always spotlessly clean & unless you opened the door to our bedrooms you would never have known children even lived there!

Currently DS1 aged 6 is a parent to an imaginary squirrel and a sheep. I am their mum and he is their dad. They have an imaginary grandfather, a car that can fold up into his pocket and they regularly come to school with us. I wouldn't change it for the world.

YANBU in the slightest. Our dd refused to answer to her given name for about a month. she preferred to be called Lydia (I had stupidly told her that I wanted to call her that), luckily her school indulged this and she soon reverted to her real name. I was glad actually, as soon as I had to use Lydia for her I realised how unLydialike she is.Nango is another story.